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cheapest GPU for hdmi and HD audio

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

Soldato
Joined
23 Oct 2002
Posts
3,177
hi guys, im wanting to turn one of my spare PCs into a media player.

oddly, none of them have a hdmi on the mobo - even though they are only a year old (from overclockers too Primo Pro AX). they were both office workstations but both have amd CPUs (AMD A8-6600 with radeon 3.9ghz)

so, im looking for a cheap as chips gfx card i can stick in that supports streaming HD audio via hdmi to my amp. prefer it to not bitstrean, i like my HD audio lights on my amp :D

also if possible, it should be passive so as to be as quiet as possible.
 
BaroUK2 said:
Not many choices in low budget as most cards are out of stock.... GT1030 can do 4K while GT710 is limited to 2560x1600..... By amp if you mean receiver then PC > receiver > tv should work fine for hdmi audio.
My basket at Overclockers UK:


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cheers buddy. im not fussed about 4k as my amp doesnt really like it - it was a 4k amp before they finalised the spec and doesnt bloody work properly with 4k grrrrrr. so 1080p will be the standard def i guess. it will mainly be used for my son watching his TV shows but the occasional blu-ray so thats why i want HD audio.

i guess i could just find out what GPU chipsets support HD audio, AMD and NV. annoyingly i have a spare card that supports it somewhere but cant find the bloody thing :(
 
BaroUK2 said:
He has mid tower case so dont think he needs half-height cards... Primo Pro AX ( Raijintek Arcadia Mid Tower USB 3.0 Case )
Click to expand...
Ok cool.

Sound output from the hdmi on a graphics card will usually be worse that motherboard integrated sound which in turn is much worse than a dedicated sound card.

my setup is optical out from a soundblaster x-fi to the sound bar, and a 1050ti with hdmi 2.0 for 4k60 to the tv..
 
pandem0nium said:
Ok cool.

Sound output from the hdmi on a graphics card will usually be worse that motherboard integrated sound which in turn is much worse than a dedicated sound card.

my setup is optical out from a soundblaster x-fi to the sound bar, and a 1050ti with hdmi 2.0 for 4k60 to the tv..
Click to expand...

not via hdmi, its digital sound, how can it sound worse? its passing the data to the amp to process! you might have a point using 3.5mm jacks or something like that. optical also cant do proper surround sound in HD audio so you arent getting HD audio anyway (true HD etc), not that a soundbar would do it justice (im outputting to a beefy onkyo amp and big old 7.1 B&W speakers).

i guarantee you me outputting via hdmi will pee all over you using optical ;) shame my amp spazzes out on 4k video but since i dont have any 4k movies i dont see the need.
 
Hah, yeah ignore me. Missed the external DAC doing the sound processing part of your post.

And it sounds like I need to switch to analogue out from my card into the bar so it's actually doing the sound processing.
 
pandem0nium said:
Hah, yeah ignore me. Missed the external DAC doing the sound processing part of your post.

And it sounds like I need to switch to analogue out from my card into the bar so it's actually doing the sound processing.
Click to expand...
optical should be passing the compressed data to the soundbar to process. the analogue out will send the audio to the soundbar. (by analogue do you mean the 3.5mm jacks?)
 
realBabelfish said:
optical should be passing the compressed data to the soundbar to process. the analogue out will send the audio to the soundbar. (by analogue do you mean the 3.5mm jacks?)
Click to expand...

Yep, though the bar has only got the one 3.5mm input so I'd only be sending 2channels so that might be a bit naff. I'll give that a go as well as hdmi pass through to see if I can improve the sound quality.
 
Would a DVI to HDMI cable work? Some motherboards/GPUs allows sound to pass through the DVI port if a HDMI adapter is connected, but I've no idea if that motherbord supports it.
 
just go for the 710,
I'm using 210 series it passes through dts hd audio etc fine
its just a matter of choosing the correct settings in your media player software
if your using mkv's dont select 7.1 audio when creating them if your av doesn't support it
 
pandem0nium said:
Yep, though the bar has only got the one 3.5mm input so I'd only be sending 2channels so that might be a bit naff. I'll give that a go as well as hdmi pass through to see if I can improve the sound quality.
Click to expand...

hdmi has the best bandwidth for digital audio. pees all over optical and the RCA connection. i guess it depends on the amp (yours is built into the soundbar)
Orcvader said:
Would a DVI to HDMI cable work? Some motherboards/GPUs allows sound to pass through the DVI port if a HDMI adapter is connected, but I've no idea if that motherbord supports it.
Click to expand...

i need hdmi to carry the audio. DVI is only video.
 
lude1962 said:
just go for the 710,
I'm using 210 series it passes through dts hd audio etc fine
its just a matter of choosing the correct settings in your media player software
if your using mkv's dont select 7.1 audio when creating them if your av doesn't support it
Click to expand...

sweet, so your amp gets passed the audio to decode?
i use kodi and have used this setup before but gave my wife the old media pc we had when her and my son left.
 
realBabelfish said:
hdmi has the best bandwidth for digital audio. pees all over optical and the RCA connection. i guess it depends on the amp (yours is built into the soundbar)
Click to expand...

Yeah, the soundbar is an LG SR7 and the sound card is a soundblaster xfi fatalitity pro.

The DAC / AMP in the sound card I would guess would be better than what the bar has built it but it looks like I can't really make use of it since the bar only has the one 3.5mm analogue input.

So I'll probably to remove the sound card and run HDMI passthrough through the bar to the tv and use the hdmi arc for the other devices. It'll give the gpu a little more breathing room as well.
 
realBabelfish said:
i need hdmi to carry the audio. DVI is only video.
Click to expand...

Officially DVI is video only, but AMD and Nvidia actually did a work around by using unused pins to output the sound when using a DVI/HDMI adapter. One example: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2574979/dvi-audio-output.html

And you can find an adapter for less than a fiver, so could be worth trying. Actually the mobo might've even have an included adapter if you still have the packaging around. You need to make sure the adapter/cable is compatible however.
 
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You can get any card from 10 plus years ago when dx11 was formed and hdmi became a standard, depends what else you want from it.


Gt 210 or hd 5450 if you want really cheap and passive and don’t mind used.
 
Orcvader said:
Would a DVI to HDMI cable work? Some motherboards/GPUs allows sound to pass through the DVI port if a HDMI adapter is connected, but I've no idea if that motherbord supports it.
Click to expand...
some onboard chipsets dont support the codecs (even though hdmi connected) for playback of video files correctly, but this mostly applies to old amd systems
realBabelfish said:
sweet, so your amp gets passed the audio to decode?
i use kodi and have used this setup before but gave my wife the old media pc we had when her and my son left.
Click to expand...
kodi is what I use (running under openelec) select hdmi device (nvidia#1 or similar) for audio output and enable audio pass through, tick only the ones your amp can handle ie ac3 dts etc
I used 2 different nvid 210's on 2 diff setups, both worked fine
 
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